The Real Reason Why FlappyBird Was Removed From The App Store

I have chosen to hold off reporting on all the FlappyBird news because I think it’s hilarious how much of an impact this dead simple (no pun intended) game has had on people and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say I really could care less about it. But not that there is some sort of official statement about why it suddenly disappeared from the App Store I thought it would be worth sharing.

In case you haven’t heard the story, Dong Nguyen, the developer of Flappy Bird, a highly popular game with graphics resembling Mario where you tap the screen to avoid hitting pipes, pulled his popular game from the App Store abruptly a few days ago.

This surprised a lot of people due to the fact the developer was making over $50,000 a day from ad revenue and it had been downloaded more than 50 million times before being removed.

Many people speculated that it was because Nintendo had asked Apple to remove the game, but Nintendo actually released an official statement saying it wasn’t them.

Forbes recently interviewed Nguyen though and now we have the answer to why it was removed.

So just what was the reason?

It was an addictive product and Nguyen didn’t like that.

“Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed,” says Dong Nguyen, in an exclusive interview, his first since he pulled the plug on the app. “But it happened to become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem. To solve that problem, it’s best to take down Flappy Bird. It’s gone forever.”

He also said he was uncomfortable with the attention and success the game brought him and wanted some peace.

In mulling whether to pull Flappy Bird, Nguyen said that it was guilt – atop the fact that “my life has not been as comfortable as I was before” – that motivated him. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said. He added that his conscious is relieved; he spent the past few days, Internet-free, catching up on slumber.

It’s crazy to think someone would just walk away from a jackpot like FlappyBird which only took 2-3 days to develop, but hopefully Nguyen will get what he wants now and iPhones will stop going for thousands of dollars on eBay with Flabby Bird installed.